Confessions, Part 1

These are my confessions .. not Usher style.

1. Breakfast and lunch are healthy, balanced meals.

Green Monster with frozen strawberries, chocolate protein powder, spinach, and raw oats.

Waffle-wich with egg + goat cheese, plus a mango.

Post-grad double fisting: smoothie and coffee.

Dinner? Healthy, sure. Balanced? Ummm … By the time I get home after traffic, I have no desire to cook. So lately, my dinner consists of a massive pile of kale chips with nutritional yeast, and lots and lots of carrots and hummus. Some bread. Maybe some tuna if we’re getting fancy with the can opener.

2. I always have dessert. Always. Arctic Zero, you are my lover. Minus your price. Yes, it’s low-cal, but I make up for that with the Hagrid-sized handful of peanuts and the even bigger handful of carob chips. And the half can of whipped creams. Seconds on the peanuts, carob, and whipped cream occur more often than not.

( source )

3. I have actually cried over not being able to run. A couple of times in spin. Including this morning.

4. Although, I now crave spin. When I get back to running (4 weeks and 6 days!), spin will definitely keep a place in my weekly routine. I also want to invest in a cushioned seat, clip-in shoes, and, eventually, a road bike.

5. Recovered as though my body, and mostly my mind, are .. I still HATE that my thighs touch. HATE.

6. I cried last week driving home from seeing my friends. Sometimes actually seeing the people you miss just makes it worse. Being that I was actually wearing makeup for once, it got in my eyes and burned and I had to pull over on 84.

7. I am more excited for/depressed over the last Harry Potter than any 23 year old should be.

( source )

If I still had a dorm room, I might have this poster up. Maybe.

8. I am also way more excited about 16 Handles coming to Fairfield than anyone should be. Especially someone that’s lactose intolerant. It’s fine. I’m thinking a fro-yo tour of a Tasti-D-Lite breakfast, Pinkberry lunch, and 16 Handles dinner is in store. Who’s in?

9. I’m still hungry after breakfast number one. Part two, coming up …

Ethel the Lonely Penguin

Yup, I went there. After two years of reading about “green monsters” on healthy living blogs, I finally did it. Bought protein powder, brought out the blender, and mixed vegetables and fruit. For breakfast.

  

In my smoothie:

• 2 cups of baby spinach
• 1/3 cup of Greek yogurt
• 2 cups of strawberries
• 1 packet Jay Robb Whey protein, vanilla flavored
• 8ish ice cubes
• about 1 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Verdict? Delicious! I really couldn’t taste the spinach at all – just strawberry-vanilla deliciousness.

I also made a strawberry banana one a few days ago and am excited to try out the chocolate flavors I picked up too.

Last Monday, my day off, I headed into the city to meet up with my friend Sarah. What are two twenty-something girls to do in the city on a warm summer day? Clearly, go to the zoo. Well, first we stopped at Chickpea for that 3pm meal of pita, hummus, and tahini. There were vegetables too, but clearly lack importance compared to the others.

We set out for the Central Park Zoo. Too bad we were entirely unsure where in the park the zoo is. So we followed Sarah’s iPhone directions the best we could and just strolled along the way.

Some highlights included:

Awesome polar bear.

Wearing my sandals.

The stork that brought Sarah to this earth and dropped her at the zoo.

Snow leopard – so pretty! And creepily looking directly at me …

Piranha

This penguin was standing by itself staring at the wall for the entire ohhh, twenty minutes? we were in penguin section. We named her Ethel. She’s our special friend.

We met another friend, Jenny from the Blog, for a stroll and some dinner. We stopped at Columbus Tavern and LOVED it! Sarah and I split the artichoke appetizer – they were roasted and had parmesan and some other delicious goodies on there. Must recreate! Oh, and then I had some salad, which was basically a vehicle for goat cheese, as most things are these days. This recipe looks good …

Friday Fruit

Happy Friday!

I hope your weekend is off to a great start!

It’s been a fruit-filled week around here. My mom and I went strawberry picking the other day – and if you’re wondering what 8.5 pounds of strawberries looks like, I have the answer for you:

These strawberries ARE SO MUCH BETTER than our store-bought ones! Much softer and sweeter! Natural-tasting, if that makes sense. And sooo red and beautiful!

Yesterday, after a sweaty 6 miles in the morning, I wanted nothing more than a cool and refreshing breakfast. I debated going for my normal yogurt bowl, but then I remembered seeing Jessica’s recipe for a mango smoothie!

I can’t read correctly slash made do with what I had, so my recipe looked like this:

1/2c frozen mango chunks
1 vanilla Chobani
1/4c skim milk
1/4c raw old fashioned oats for staying power

While it was good, I know it would have been AMAZING if I had read the recipe correctly (1/2 mango, not cup of mango chunks .. of course I actually do have half a mango in my fridge, too) and followed the recipe more to the letter (left out the milk – made it too watery). Oh, well! It was still the perfect post-run breakfast and now I know what to do to improve it for next time !

After my obsession began with Green Mountain’s Blueberry coffee a couple days ago, I had my mom pick some up at the grocery store:

Not the exact brand as before, but still good! The New England Coffee Blueberry Cobbler has sort of a chocolate-y aftertaste? Not bad at all, but unexpected. I think I still prefer Green Mountain’s!

This morning’s post-gym fuel was a raspberry Chobani with MultiGrain Cheerios. Pre-elliptical and stair masterage, I had some Blueberry Cobbler coffee and a mini Clif Crunchy Peanut Butter bar!

Right now my weekend is wide open! What are your plans? What’s your favorite flavor coffee?